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Boko Haram, Armed Forces to be probed for war crimes— ICC
By Modupe Shodeinde
The International Criminal Court, has stated that the Nigerian Armed Forces alongside the Book Haram insurgents would be probed for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, in a statement yesterday, says the courts in its preliminary examination has found a reasonable basis to begin investigating the Nigerian Armed forces for crimes committed during the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency in the North East.
Bensouda said the Nigerian military just like the Boko Haram insurgents, were facing allegations of war crimes like murder, rape, torture and cruel treatment.
Other crimes members of the Nigerian Armed forces are being probed for include: enforced disappearance, forcible transfer of population, outrages upon personal dignity, intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such and against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities, unlawful imprisonment, conscripting and enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces and using them to participate actively in hostilities, persecution on gender and political grounds and other inhumane acts.”
According to Bensouda, the allegations “are also sufficiently grave to warrant investigation by my office, both in quantitative and qualitative terms.”
She declared that following a thorough process, “the statutory criteria for opening an investigation into the situation in Nigeria have been met.”
Bensouda said while her office recognised that the vast majority of criminality within the Nigeria situation was attributable to non-state actors, the ICC also found a reasonable basis to believe that members of the Nigerian Security Forces had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
She explained that the next step will be authorisation from the Judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber of the Court to open investigations.
